HM Attorney General v James Baines
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE |
| Judgment Date | 27 November 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 4326 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | ATC/13/0574 |
| Date | 27 November 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 4326 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
The Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND AND WALES
( Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd)
and
Mr Justice Tugendhat
ATC/13/0574
Miss Melanie Cumberland (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Applicant
Mr Peter Lownds (instructed by Quality Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
Wednesday 27 November 2013
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
There is before the court an application by Her Majesty's Attorney General in relation to the publication on social media of details relating to Jon Venables.
The detailed background and the applicable principles of law are set out in the judgment of this court given in Her Majesty's Attorney General v Harkins [2013] EWHC 1455 (Admin). It is unnecessary to repeat any of that. We can turn immediately to the present case. Before we do so, we would again like to commend Her Majesty's Attorney General for the determination with which he and his office have pursued this application. That determination has been shown by the hard work carried out by his team in examining the truth of the respondent's explanations. We commend those who have carried out this hard work.
We would have heard this application on 23 October 2013 if the respondent had by then taken steps to obtain legal advice. He had not done so. We therefore had to call on the assistance of pro bono counsel to enable him to have some representation. We ordered that the matter be heard within four to five weeks, because it is important to bring home to those who breach orders of this court the swift process by which the court will proceed. We are grateful for the assistance that has been given by the Legal Aid Agency in arranging for legal representation to have been made available.
We would also point out, in what we hope will never eventuate further in relation to the Venables matter, that the legal aid position is now clear. In King's Lynn and West Norfolk Council v Bunning [2013] EWHC 3390, Blake J set out the procedure by which legal aid can be obtained in cases similar to this. The Attorney General has agreed that, in future, in letters sent to anyone who is involved in contempt proceedings of this kind, the contents of that judgment will be drawn to the attention of the alleged contemnor.
We made clear in Harkins, to which we have referred, that in future no one could argue that they were ignorant of the injunction. Again, we are greatly indebted to Her Majesty's Attorney General for the prompt steps he has taken to ensure that the injunction is now on the internet. If anyone searches under the name "Venables", the terms of the injunction will appear. It will therefore be, it seems to us, impossible for anyone in the future to argue that they did not know about it. Accordingly a breach of the injunction will result in the almost inevitable prospect of a significant period of custody.
The facts of this contempt — for such it is now at last admitted — can be summarised as follows. It is right to point out at the outset that the respondent came from the same community as Jamie Bulger. It is possibly some explanation, but no real mitigation as to what happened on 14 February 2013, the twentieth anniversary of his murder. It is said that the respondent's emotions were aroused by that fact.
What happened was that at about 1.48pm on 14 February 2013 the respondent used his twitter account to post images that purported to identify Venables. One image (a school photograph) showed Venables as a child. Juxtaposed below, and arranged alongside, were different images of an adult. They were accompanied by a tweet in the following terms:
"It's on BBC news about the jon venables pic on twitter saying it's been removed eerrm no it hasn't …"
The reference to the BBC news was a reference to the statement made by Her Majesty's Attorney General about the prohibition of the publication of the photographs and also the fact that he was investigating those who had breached the injunction.
Following his admission, it is unarguable that the respondent did not know of that injunction and did not know that what he was doing was in contempt of the orders of this court. With Miss Cumberland's careful assistance we have been taken through the tweets that were posted. It is clear beyond argument that, immediately it was pointed out to him that he was at risk of contempt proceedings and of being sent to prison, he ignored the warning. In fact, worse than that, on someone who had pointed it out to him he poured abuse in terms which are completely unacceptable.
During the day of 14 February the respondent continued to maintain his stance of disregarding the statements that had been made that he was wrong, and went so far as to point out that he was doing so with the objective of causing harm. For example, on one occasion he said that he would:
"smash this rats head in for what he done"
At 6.41pm he sent another twitter message as follows:
"didn't no that its been on the news anyone who shares the picture will be prosecuted an can go to jail"
Thereafter, he continued to maintain his defiant stance. On 24 February (ten days later) he re-tweeted the same pictures....
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...of the grant of legal aid for representation in respect of an application to commit heard in the High Court. See further Her Majesty's Attorney General v Baines [2013] EWHC 4326 (Admin). 26 In that case committal proceedings were brought by the Attorney General in respect of breaches of the......
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Secretary For Justice v Chan Oi Yau Riyo
...a number of committal applications. Mr Ho referred me to Attorney General v Harkins [2013] EWHC 1455 and Attorney General v Baines [2013] EWHC 4326. In each of the cases, offending Facebook or Twitter account posts had been made in breach of the injunction, and after taking into account the......